Bundlers raise millions for Hill

President Barack Obama has shunned lobbyist bundlers in his campaigns. Democrats in Congress have no such qualms, welcoming them big time during the 2010 midterms.

In all, 122 lobbyists generated at least $8.9 million in donations for Democratic candidates and committees in last year’s elections, according to a review of Federal Election Commission reports by POLITICO.

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The king of Democratic bundlers was Brian Wolff, former executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, who directed more than $2 million in donations for his old committee, FEC reports showed — a sum worthy of an ambassadorship if generated for a successful presidential candidate.

On the Republican side, 56 lobbyists bundled about $3 million for GOP candidates and committees.

Big donors have been bundling donations for members of Congress for years — but 2010 was the first election cycle in which the members had to report who was rounding up campaign checks on their behalf. Those figures are almost certainly wildly under-reported, because the law requiring disclosures is riddled with ways for lawmakers to avoid making public the quiet assistance they receive from the influential class.

If a bundler raises less than $16,000 in a reporting period, the amount doesn’t have to be reported. If a candidate doesn’t have a formal method for tracking donations, they don’t have to be reported. If the chief invitation for a reception comes from a nonlobbyist who works as a “strategic adviser” at a lobbying firm, it doesn’t have to be reported.

In other words, the list of loopholes is limited only by the lack of creativity of a lawmaker who doesn’t want to file the bundling disclosure reports.

But the public records also offer glimpses of who is getting the campaign cash — mainly at moments in which lawmakers try to live up to the spirit of the disclosure law. For instance, Rep. Harry Waxman (D-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) disclosed several lobbyist-bundlers, and newly elected Missouri Republican Sen. Roy Blunt’s campaign filed reports even for donations of just a few thousand dollars.

Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, acknowledged that the new disclosure requirements, which Obama advocated when he was in the Senate, are “not what many of the reformers wanted, but it is what they could get passed.”

The tactics employed for congressional bundling are similar to those in presidential campaigns. For instance, lobbyists will tap clients and friends, urging them to make donations up to the $2,400 maximum to favored candidates, host ticketed receptions that feature a member of Congress or buy up tickets for a reelection committee event.

But there are some key differences.

When raising money for House and Senate contests, lobbyists and donors have a much better shot at getting face time with candidates and developing a lasting relationship with them.

The motivation for driving checks toward a candidate also is different, said Krumholz.

“The bundling that goes on with presidential candidates is as often as not aimed at landing a job in the new administration,” she said. “Here, we are talking about getting policy passed or stymied on behalf of an industry or client.”

Wolff, who now works as a lobbyist for the Edison Electric Institute, is a longtime Democratic strategist who raised money for Vice President Al Gore’s presidential race, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s campaigns and a host of other Democrats before he joined the DCCC as finance director, eventually becoming executive director.

One reason Wolff dedicated so much time to helping the DCCC in the midterms last year was that he decided to leave the committee just as the campaign season was kicking into high gear, people close to him said. Wolff declined to comment for this story.